Items filtered by date: Tuesday, 02 December 2014

 9 Nov 2017  -  There are major changes afoot at New Zealand’s biggest union.  FIRST Union, which represents 27,500 New Zealanders in the retail, finance, transport and logistics sectors, will bid farewell to its president, general secretary and retail and finance secretary in Auckland on Thursday.  The union cites recent wins in taking on Cotton On over the soon-to-be-repealed “tea break law”, advocating on behalf of migrant workers and the victims of education trafficking, and for working with communities to help keep bank branches open.

“The outgoing leadership team and I are proud that, after nine years of a National government, our membership grew by 28 per cent,” said outgoing general secretary Robert Reid, who will take up the president’s position.

“We’ve negotiated an average wage increases of 3 per cent for our members, an increase well above the national average over this time.”

President Syd Keepa, retail and finance secretary Maxine Gay and national organiser Bill Bradford are moving on.

The new FIRST leadership team begins their four-year term immediately.

They include general secretary Dennis Maga, assistant general secretary Louisa Jones, retail and finance secretary Tali Williams and transport and logistics secretary Jared Abbott.

| A nznewswire release  || November 9, 2017  |||

9 Nov 2017  -  Statement by Reserve Bank Governor Grant Spencer:  The Reserve Bank today left the Official Cash Rate (OCR) unchanged at 1.75 percent.  Global economic growth continues to improve, although inflation and wage outcomes remain subdued. Commodity prices are relatively stable. Bond yields and credit spreads remain low and equity prices are near record levels. Monetary policy remains easy in the advanced economies but is gradually becoming less stimulatory. The exchange rate has eased since the August Statement and, if sustained, will increase tradables inflation and promote more balanced growth. GDP in the June quarter grew broadly in line with expectations, following relative weakness in the previous two quarters. Employment growth has been strong and GDP growth is projected to strengthen, with a weaker outlook for housing and construction offset by accommodative monetary policy, the continued high terms of trade, and increased fiscal stimulus. The Bank has incorporated preliminary estimates of the impact of new government policies in four areas: new government spending; the KiwiBuild programme; tighter visa requirements; and increases in the minimum wage. The impact of these policies remains very uncertain. House price inflation has moderated due to loan-to-value ratio restrictions, affordability constraints, reduced foreign demand, and a tightening in credit conditions. Low house price inflation is expected to continue, reinforced by new government policies on housing. Annual CPI inflation was 1.9 percent in September although underlying inflation remains subdued. Non-tradables inflation is moderate but expected to increase gradually as capacity pressures increase. Tradables inflation has increased due to the lower New Zealand dollar and higher oil prices, but is expected to soften in line with projected low global inflation. Overall, CPI inflation is projected to remain near the midpoint of the target range and longer-term inflation expectations are well anchored at 2 percent. Monetary policy will remain accommodative for a considerable period. Numerous uncertainties remain and policy may need to adjust accordingly. Read the Monetary Policy Statement

| A RBNZ release  ||  November 9, 2017  |||

9 Nov 2017  -  In 2015 Zespri’s technical team and Everfresh NZ, represented by Ernst Slabbekoorn (EMS NZ and AUS representative), identified a clear need for a rugged and very reliable analyser to monitor ethylene in the post-harvest and transport of kiwifruit.

EMS has had significant experience in developing in house high end analysis equipment for the fresh produce and flower industries. Jan-Kees Boerman from EMS was convinced that the analysers designed could perform under extreme conditions and able to measure very low concentrations (parts per billion, ppb-range) required to store kiwifruit.

Zespri as a leading marketer of kiwifruit chose to put the EMS analysers to the ultimate test and at the same time conduct a thorough test in an independent lab. For the test in the field a number of analysers were placed on board different vessels to monitor ethylene levels and ethylene production and the additionally these analyzers were fitted with O2 and CO2 to monitor respiration.

Zespri Technical Manager, Frank Bollen, with more than 20 years of experience with ethylene measurements, mentioned the outcome of the reports and the results of the field test "a fantastic job" referring to the level of detection of EMS ethylene analysers.

Both tests have had outstanding results and Zespri is now in the process of investigating how to integrate the analysis equipment in their supply chain. This commitment has led to an ongoing relationship between 2 companies which are operating at the highest level.

The EMS MACView® can be used everywhere to keep track of the valuable product throughout the supply chain wherever location. EMS analyzers can be used for cool store, reefer and warehouse monitoring even in the middle of the ocean. Data is synchronized to a web portal which is enables global access to all data.

| An EMS release  ||  November 8,  2017   |||

#8 -  This intelligentsia-driven flap was an offshoot of climatism and a forerunner of the Peak Oil panic. The contention was that the greater the distance the final consumer was from the food that they were consuming that each mouthful was responsible for a correspondingly greater consumption of transport oil and thus spread of carbon dioxide from the combustion process.

The position nowEconomies of scale proved that this equation, the one relating fuel consumption to distance to plate, flawed. The scurrying around of delivery vans on roads was seen to be less oil-burning per- plateful than shifting food around in container ships which had the added advantage of reducing road usage.

| MSC Newswire Big Frights of Our Times Series #8  || Thursday 9 November 2017   |||